


Line 19

by mechanicalUniverses



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AU, M/M, Memories, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Violence, Recalling memories, it’s tuckington but only if you squint real hard, recalling an alternate life, seeing another universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 11:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicalUniverses/pseuds/mechanicalUniverses
Summary: “Washington,” said the stranger suddenly. “My name is Washington.”





	Line 19

It’s raining outside.

Not this was new for autumn in the northwest. But at a quarter to ten o’clock on a Wednesday night, when all the regular evening traffic is gone and the bus stops are empty and the only occasional sound are the tires on cars quietly hushing him as the drive by, it seems like it should be so much more than just water falling from the sky.

But it isn’t. It quite literally is just water falling from the sky.

A drop lands on the tip of Tucker’s nose, breaking him out of his revere. He blinks as another falls on his eyebrow. He scowls up at the inky sky and draws his hood a little closer to himself. As if to prove a point, another drop gets him right in the eye. He wears _glasses_ for fucks sake, how does that even happen?

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you too,” he grumbled as he wipes his face.

“Are you really going to curse out a cloud?” Tucker pauses and aims his frown at the stranger who spoke. He stands under the bus stop, and judging by the way had his hands shoved deep into his hooded pockets, he had been there a while. He has blond hair that was dark at the roots, eyebrows that looked like they were permanently set in a slight, angry V, and a billion freckles all over the part of his face that he could see. The white fluorescent light that illuminate the stop throw heavy shadows over his eyes.

Tucker spreads his hands and said, “Uh, yes? It’s like, equivalent to God pissing on me.”

The stranger turns his head slightly to give him an odd look. This action unveils the rest of his face. Tucker can see his eyes now, glinting slightly; gray, like the thunder clouds in a summer storm. Something about them seems familiar. Familiar like the way you see the same type of flowers in someone else’s garden and think, “Oh, hey,” or when see the same person you haven’t talked to twice in a day. You only ever realize it when it happens twice.

“Have we met?” Tucker asked with a slight tilt to his head.

A car drives by, a steady _shhh_ rising and fading as fast as it came.

_He remembers seeing white, so, so much white. And then crashing, and then, far below, a swelling, frigid blue, cold and sharp as the edge of a knife. Around him was red and blue and more gray and more white._

_There was shouting, confusion, and then everything was over and they were riding home with a man who had just been trying to kill them hours before, a man who donned his dead friends armor. He remembers more yelling, but then it was just the yelling of someone who wanted to be heard. He remembers he hated that, and he had yelled back, and it sucked some major balls._

_But he also remembers a gun shot, a spew of red on steely gray. In some big hanger with a bunch of other red and blues guys, but these ones weren’t his friends. He remembers anger and hurt, horror and fear, all at once from that one moment. But there were others. Other moments that didn’t have blood and gore and death. These ones held fondness and admiration, victory and joy, but with people he swears he’s never seen them before in his life._

_Every single one of these held a face with freckles and gray eyes that held a million memories, and still had room for him—_

“I don’t think so,” said the man.

“Huh,” Tucker said. “Must have you mixed up with someone else.”

“Oh.” A pause. “What’s your name?”

“Tucker,” he answered. The man furrows his brow. “Lavernius Tucker?”

But the man just slowly shakes his head. “I want to say I recognize it from somewhere... But I don’t think I do.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

They stand together in the rain for just a minute. Tucker catches himself trying to get a glimpse at the mans face, trying to figure out what had brought that onslaught of... Whatever that had been. It couldn’t have been him—He’s never seen so much snow, never seen that much blood spilled, never fired or even held a gun, or seen that strange glowing sword.

“Bus is here,” said the man.

So it was. Tucker takes his phone out of his pocket and opens up his ticket app. The inside of the bus is nearly empty. The only ones left are people like him who had the shitty late evening times. The bright number 19 on the front in glowing yellow lights seems oddly interesting in the night. It blinks away to suddenly show 6th and Bailey Street, and then changes back.

“Washington,” said the stranger suddenly. “My name is Washington.” He leaves it at that, but he has a brow raised anyway. Tucker shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he said, and he boards the bus.

As it drives away, he turns in his seat to watch Washington. He swears he’s staring back, but they turn a corner and he vanishes into the rainy night.

**Author's Note:**

> ehehe kinda a small reference to wash’s prisoner number (619-B) but not exactly obvious.
> 
> this was most certainly not based off of the bus i take every day.
> 
> [my tumblr](https://scintillating-galaxias.tumblr.com)


End file.
